Friday, August 05, 2016

In the past few days I've seen articles about pictures Melania Trump posed for back in the 1990s - before she was married - and stories about her visa situation from the same time. Now, I'm sure the motivation for these stories is to somehow damage Donald Trump, but I can't help thinking that anything that harkens back to the 90s will not be good for Hillary Clinton either.

Let's see: Mrs Trump was in her mid 20s and posed for what could be considered titillating photographs. I doubt the existence of such pictures will actually damage Donald Trump's campaign at all, but if we're re-examining the candidates' spouses' sexual behaviour in the 1990s I don't think Melania will come off worse than Hillary Clinton's spouse.

All the Trump campaign has to do is keep pounding away with pictures of Bill & Monica Lewinsky and talk about that blue dress. That one escapade alone assures Bill of the title of "Sleaziest behaviour by a candidate's spouse."

And the visa issue?

Again, maybe Mrs Trump's on dodgy ground and maybe she's not, but whatever about the legal murkiness of her having walked a runway while on a visitor's visa, let's face it - Bill's legal troubles from the same time are far more politically damaging.

Even if you take his word for it that he wasn't sexually harassing anyone or taking advantage of a young intern, that everything was consensual and above board, that still means that at best he comes across as a dirty old man and Hillary was his enabler.

I know for people my age and for the seriously involved political junkies what the Clintons did in the 90s is old history, but there are quite a few younger people who actually only have the slightest understanding of what he (they) got up to at the time. I can't see what benefit Hillary gets from people opening up the 90s can of worms or spouses' behavior. Her best bet is to keep the focus on her vs Trump and not on Bill vs Melania and on the here and now and not the past.